CJS Noon Lecture - "Out Gays” or “Shameless Gays”? What Gets Lost, and What is Gained, when U.S. Queer Theory is Translated into Japanese?

When it comes to the politics of sexuality, language matters, and examining queer theory in translation shows just how critical it is. Through close readings of Japanese translations of texts by Eve Sedgwick, Leo Bersani, David Halperin and others, this talk traces the reception of queer theory in Japan and develops a queer theory of translation itself.

About the Speaker:J. Keith Vincent, CJS’s 2013-14 Toyota Visiting Professor, is an Associate Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Boston University. Among his most recent achievements, Professor Vincent received the 2011 U.S. Japan Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture for his translation of Okamoto Kanoko’s A Riot of Goldfish (Hesperus Press, 2010). He also published his book, Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction, in 2012 from the Harvard University Asia Center.